Amazon.comAmazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos appeared on 60 Minutes earlier this week for an interview with Charlie Rose. I’m a big fan of Bezos and Amazon (disclosure: I’m also a long term shareholder). There were some great things that Bezos said. One of the quotes that caught my eye was about Amazon’s finite lifespan.

Jeff Bezos: Companies have short life spans, Charlie. And Amazon will be disrupted one day.

Charlie Rose: And you worry about that?

Bezos: I don’t worry about it because I know it’s inevitable. Companies come and go. And the companies that are the shiniest and most important of any era, you wait a few decades and they’re gone.

Rose: And your job is to make sure that you delay that date?

Bezos: I would love for it to be after I’m dead.

I like this quote because it’s true. But you might not hear a lot of CEOs say it in reference to their own companies. Bezos, being the founder of the company, certainly has more leeway than many other CEOs.

Amazon is a great, successful company that is as beloved by customers as pretty much any company in the world. It’s hard to see them going away and yet, here is the founder and CEO saying that it will happen, at what may be its peak (though I doubt this is Amazon’s peak). That’s interesting.

And if this is true for Amazon, what does that say for your online community?

People panic when a community isn’t as active as it once was. That’s not a veteran move. Veterans understand the ebb and flow. And that everything eventually comes to an end, including your online community. That doesn’t mean you don’t work hard, change things up, experiment and improve. Just like Amazon does.

But no matter what, one day it’ll be over. It doesn’t mean you didn’t do great work or that you were not successful. It just means that the time has come.